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Customer Resource Management For Non-Profits?

Posted by timothy on from the hey-I'm-a-non-profit dept.

NoTerminal writes "My 60-person non-profit organization is looking for a tool or set of tools to keep track of our donors and contacts. A perfect solution will either replace or gracefully synchronize with Outlook's contacts module, as well as provide a powerful back-end that can handle donation tracking, grant reporting, and interaction tracking. What contact management system or customer relations management package is your non-profit using? How do you like it?"

11 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Budget makes a big difference... by Underfoot · · Score: 3, Informative

    I am not sure how big your budget is, but I've heard nothing but good things about Tessitura:
    http://www.tessituranetwork.com/Products.aspx

    There is also Raiser's Edge - but their product (in my opinion) feels like it was put together by a programmer (i.e. - written to bad specs by someone whose job isn't fundraising), not by a user - and thus has lots of quirks that make it not as useful as it should be...
    http://www.blackbaud.com/products/fundraising/raisersedge.aspx

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    1. Re:Budget makes a big difference... by Underfoot · · Score: 3, Informative

      I don't really care about how a database looks. I care about how a database functions. Tessitura is well thought-out as far as making the product useful to the non-profit. RE seems to go out of its way to make the non-profit do more work / buy more modules. (Have you ever tried to invite a couple to an event? There is no easy way to add a spouse after adding the main contact. Simple little thing, but it means a lot of time from someone who more than likely doesn't have any, as non-profit staff tends to wear many hats.) Again, personal opinion based on personal experience.

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      I mentioned tinker-toys once in a post - now I'm modded down for life.
    2. Re:Budget makes a big difference... by lionchild · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've worked with a number of non-profit's as an IT-Consultant who are small enough that I *am* the IT-department. Some have used in house spreadsheets and file-maker databases, but both Tessitura and Raisers Edge are the two big products that I've seen and worked with. Both do what a non-profit needs to do. But, it's all about your budget.

      Currently, I have one non-profit who is splitting Tessitura between 2 other non-profits. Cost sharing it makes it something reasonable for all three. It's hosted at a central site for them and there's someone in charge of all three data sets. It's something I'd suggest considering if you are really interested in one of the better products.

      Good luck!

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    3. Re:Budget makes a big difference... by gobbo · · Score: 3, Informative

      One of 'my' non-profits (~200mbrs) uses the software 'Donation' (softwarefornonprofits.com) but most of the users complain about the interface, and there are some problems keeping things in sync.

      So, since the website is running Drupal, I'm looking at civicrm as a way to incorporate a back-end. I like the idea of controlling backups remotely and things staying in sync. Not sure about methods of producing tax receipts, or its reliability as a data source for accounting software.

      Another possibility we were considering is eBase, a free FileMaker based CRM system for non-profits. I like the filemaker design environment for quick user interfaces, and custom reports etc. It's easy to teach a moderately skilled computer user to administer. But, eBase uses an antiquated file format, not even sure where to get FM v.5. Waiting on an update.

      Another non-profit I'm in the middle of setting up plans on having a much larger membership base, with many layers of privilege, and will center on a media-rich website, so we'll probably try CiviCRM.

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      Damn those pesky terrorists
  2. Raisers Edge by dave562 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's pretty much the industry standard. I work for a 501(c)3 non-profit with a $15 million a year budget. It's Windows only, but I'm not aware of any open source solution that includes all of the industry specific knowledge that Raisers Edge does.

  3. Re:salesforce.com by StJohnsWort · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yep. I work for a chain of not for profit hospitals and I know the folks who handle donor contributions use salesforce.com. Have been for years. Do not know what they like / dislike about it. But the years of use doe's say something. The only thing is it can be bandwidth intensive on your internet pipe.

  4. Sugar sugar by alexborges · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just sugarcrm.

    Its direct, integrates well with excel and outlook. I mean, im baffled that very few mentioned it here.

    Sugar is the way to go.

    I have to suffer salesforce and, FOR OUR NEEDS, it sucks infront of sugar. And thats that.

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  5. Salesforce.com by jdstahl · · Score: 3, Informative

    Salesforce.com is a pretty amazing platform for doing CRM that goes well beyond just donor management. As others have mentioned, the Salesforce Foundation makes it available from free-to-darn-cheap. It has good Outlook/Office integration, and unlike most other solutions Salesforce has an really solid Web Services API that makes it possible to integrate with all kinds of other systems, notably including Plone, the open-source CMS system that many nonprofits use. ONE/Northwest, the nonprofit I work for, has done a ton of work in this area, and has had great success at delivering powerful, easy-to-use solutions to mid-sized environmental nonprofits.

  6. My Job. by kbromer · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work as a DB consultant for a non-profit that does CRM-Database and Web consulting for other non-profits. We've developed in a variety of platforms and have done everything from custom built solutions through Salesforce, so I'm pretty familiar with the turf. My tips:
    1. Raiser's Edge is a nice product with relatively easy entry, but its REALLY tough to master, and, as is true with most systems I've worked with, reporting is still more an art than a science. It's expensive, support is expensive, maintenance is expensive.
    2. Salesforce is our preferred platform at the moment. Low barrier to entry (10 seat license for free for 501c(3)), alot of training available free of charge, and with some tweaking, a good non-profit overlay for it's sales-centric backend. Their current NP Template is severely lacking (we have our own package we use) although they've got some momentum behind it lately, and I expect it to improve dramatically over the next few releases. We do alot of customization work on this platform, and its pretty flexible, nice API, great plug-in for Eclipse and the OO language (Apex) they use for the API layer is derived from Java. I wasn't sold at first, but its really grown on me as a platform. Reporting can still be rough though.
    3. Filemaker/eBase Not worth your time, money, or frustration.
    4. SugarCRM has been getting some mention in the community lately, and in my experience, may be a viable alternative, but I haven't had enough time to play with it.
    5. Custom solutions are always pricey, but you should (theoretically) get what you want. MS Access (please no), SQL Server, whatever the opensource flavor of the week is- if you have a really odd-duck funding or business model, it might be worth a look.
    The only reason I wouldn't recommend SF outright to you is that it's a bit finicky to setup the Outlook connector, I can't speak for the others around Outlook connectivity. OTOH, what is your CRM DB doing trying to replace your email system in the first place?

  7. Drupal + CiviCRM? by crivens · · Score: 3, Informative

    How about Drupal + this module: http://drupal.org/project/civicrm

  8. Re:Excel. by Anpheus · · Score: 3, Informative

    My solution requires, literally, them to merely plug in a hard drive with a batch file already on it, and then make a single click.

    And no, it was for a very small business that doesn't need or want an IT department to manage its computers. Performance hit? The new computers were six years newer than the ones stolen. If they noticed a performance hit, they only told me about how much faster their computers were.